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C D Sahay, who took over as the fifteenth chief of the Research and Analysis Wing of the Cabinet secretariat, India's external intelligence agency, on Monday is the first R&AW chief to have undergone training with Israeli intelligence in addition to training in the United Kingdom.

Previous R&AW chiefs have had the benefit of training courses in the UK or the United States or both, but not in Israel.

Like his predecessors, Sahay will be designated secretary (R) in the Cabinet secretariat.

He will work under Brajesh Mishra, principal secretary to the prime minister, but his administrative boss will be the Cabinet secretary.

Sahay is the thirteenth officer of the Indian Police Service to be appointed R&AW chief since the organisation was created in 1969. The agency has had one boss each from the Indian Frontier Administration Service and the Indian Postal Service as well.[...]
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The American military has been asking the Israeli army for advice on fighting inside cities, and studying fighting in the West Bank city of Jenin last April, unnamed United States and Israeli sources have confirmed. Reports that US troops trained with Israeli forces for street-to-street fighting have been denied.

If the US army believes the road to Baghdad lies through Jenin, there is reason for Iraqi civilians to be concerned. During fighting in the Jenin refugee camp last April, more than half the Palestinian dead were civilians. There was compelling evidence that Israeli soldiers targeted civilians, including Fadwa Jamma, a Palestinian nurse shot dead as she tried to treat a wounded man. A 14-year-old boy was killed by Israeli tank-fire in a crowded street after the curfew was lifted. A Palestinian in a wheelchair was shot dead, and his body was crushed by an Israeli tank.

Israeli soldiers prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded and refused the Red Cross access. Using bulldozers, the Israeli army demolished an entire neighbourhood – home to 800 Palestinian families – reducing it to dust and rubble.

Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history and strategy at Jerusalem's internationally respected Hebrew University, has told reporters that, following his advice to US Marines, the American military bought nine of the converted bulldozers used in the Jenin demolitions from Israel.

Professor van Creveld said he gave advice to marines last year in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He said he was questioned about Israeli tactics in Jenin, and told them the giant D9 bulldozers, manufactured for civilian use in the US but fitted with armour-plating in Israel, were among the most useful weapons.
- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:43 PM